Waterloo Supervisor Search

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abdullahkhalids
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:01 pm

Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by abdullahkhalids » Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:16 pm

I received a conditional acceptance offer from Waterloo on March 5. A faculty member has to agree to be my supervisor for things to continue.

I emailed my top choice potential advisor. After two weeks and an email to an alternate address, I found that he wasn't taking any new students this year.

I have since then emailed three other potential advisors and have received no replies. I am wondering if this is the norm at Waterloo or what? I have used similarly worded emails to contact professors at other universities and have received warm and positive replies. Another person in my department also got accepted to Waterloo and has also not received any replies.

Should I call professores? Do something else?

bfollinprm
Posts: 1203
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:44 am

Re: Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by bfollinprm » Sun Mar 31, 2013 7:34 pm

I would call, it can't hurt, since if they never respond you're obviously not going anyway.

ThomBoh
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 10:20 pm

Re: Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by ThomBoh » Mon Apr 01, 2013 1:07 pm

I go to Waterloo. Who are you interested in working with, and on what? Who did you first contact?

abdullahkhalids
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:01 pm

Re: Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by abdullahkhalids » Mon Apr 01, 2013 1:59 pm

ThomBoh wrote:I go to Waterloo. Who are you interested in working with, and on what? Who did you first contact?
I initially wanted to work with Drs. Mosca and Maslov, on the fellowship mentioned here http://iqc.uwaterloo.ca/welcome/graduate/scholarships

This was a perfect fit for me. I didn't get a reply for a long time till I tracked down Dr. Maslov's gmail and he told me that all positions were filled.

I have since then emailed Dr. Frank Wilhelm and Dr. Joseph Emerson. All of these people are working in someway or the other towards the practical implementation of quantum computers.

I have wondered if these @iqc emails are not their primary emails, but I have been unable to track any other email address. I asked the coordinator, but she is on break till tomorrow.

ThomBoh
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 10:20 pm

Re: Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by ThomBoh » Tue Apr 02, 2013 9:10 am

You could try their uwaterloo emails, but I expect that the iqc and uwaterloo emails feed to the same mailbox. Some professors are definitely harder to get a hold of/get a reply from than others though. There are some IQC professors who I see walking around on a daily basis and have had to wait several months to get an email response from, if at all. Some of them get just massive amounts of emails and only reply to the ones that they're interested in, so if they're not interested or aren't taking any more students it may be more likely just not to hear back than get a reply saying so (which can be frustrating on a student's end).

FYI Frank Wilhelm is not at IQC anymore, but has moved to a school in Germany (this happened I think in 2011?), which isn't well advertised on the IQC web pages (they're slow in updating things). I happen to know that Joseph Emerson has already accepted some new students for the fall and it seems like he wouldn't be able to take more, but it couldn't hurt to send him an email. Though, Emerson's research, I would say, is less geared directly towards practical implementations of quantum computing than someone like Frank Wilhelm or David Cory (I would highly recommend trying to get in touch with David Cory if you're interested in implementations -- he's a world expert and I'm currently taking a course that he's teaching on implementations of quantum computing). Emerson has done alot of research in open quantum systems and implementations (he was Cory's postdoc at MIT) but research activity in his group right now is much more oriented towards the interaction between foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum computing. If you're very intent on working on something that's *directly* listed as one of his research focuses then persistence in trying to contact him could pay off, but again I wouldn't imagine he's taking any more students for next year.

abdullahkhalids
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:01 pm

Re: Waterloo Supervisor Search

Post by abdullahkhalids » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:13 pm

ThomBoh wrote:You could try their uwaterloo emails, but I expect that the iqc and uwaterloo emails feed to the same mailbox. Some professors are definitely harder to get a hold of/get a reply from than others though. There are some IQC professors who I see walking around on a daily basis and have had to wait several months to get an email response from, if at all. Some of them get just massive amounts of emails and only reply to the ones that they're interested in, so if they're not interested or aren't taking any more students it may be more likely just not to hear back than get a reply saying so (which can be frustrating on a student's end).

FYI Frank Wilhelm is not at IQC anymore, but has moved to a school in Germany (this happened I think in 2011?), which isn't well advertised on the IQC web pages (they're slow in updating things). I happen to know that Joseph Emerson has already accepted some new students for the fall and it seems like he wouldn't be able to take more, but it couldn't hurt to send him an email. Though, Emerson's research, I would say, is less geared directly towards practical implementations of quantum computing than someone like Frank Wilhelm or David Cory (I would highly recommend trying to get in touch with David Cory if you're interested in implementations -- he's a world expert and I'm currently taking a course that he's teaching on implementations of quantum computing). Emerson has done alot of research in open quantum systems and implementations (he was Cory's postdoc at MIT) but research activity in his group right now is much more oriented towards the interaction between foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum computing. If you're very intent on working on something that's *directly* listed as one of his research focuses then persistence in trying to contact him could pay off, but again I wouldn't imagine he's taking any more students for next year.
Thanks for info on Frank Wilhelm. I already talked to Dr. Cory. He says he usually takes students from PSI. I applied to PSI, but haven't received a reply yet, so...

Dr. Emerson's work is close enough for me to be happy to work on it. I guess I will call/email him tomorrow and see how it goes..



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